Odd Thoughts on the Skills

[89157Z]

I really like the massive numbers of skills and subskills in Academagia. We can all wonder at some of the placement choices, but I just wanted to post saying that the skills have been more than just fascinating in the game. They've been positively helpful to me.

 

In the category of accidental spiritualism, I've found meaning in some of the skills present in Academagia. Things like Study Habits, Planning, and Dedication. The idea that these things are trainable has implications to certain philosophies of mine. Some of my free time lately has been devoted to studying the question of whether they really are trainable (and if so, how to train them). Who created those skills for the game and what are their thoughts on them? I wonder.

 

And on a more pragmatic note, the skill of Identities of Arithmetic changed the way I look at Arithmetic. After studying the lores in Academagia, I devoted an evening to practicing math and significantly improved my faculty with both the applications and identities of arithmetic. It may seem foolish, but when I was younger, I had not really grasped that (for example) 34 + 29 doesn't just lead to 63, but is actually identical to 63. Finally grasping this epiphany led me to understand that 34 + 29 is also identical to 33 + 30, to 60 + 3, and every other representation of the number. They're all the same thing; they're all the number 63.

 

It seems strange to confess so publicly that I'm learning from a game, but I am. It isn't that the game is any less fictional. The lore on arithmetic in the game indeed implies that within the world of Academagia, many things do not function by the numbers and methods we are all familiar with. It is that the game presents certain methods of thinking which transcend the fictional presentation.